Planting Tulips

Fall means I’m winding things down in the garden.

I’m usually somewhere on the burn-out spectrum this time of year but I know I need to push a little harder to get in all those tulip bulbs. This is the best way to have the earliest blooms in your garden.

And let me just say, hands down, tulips are one of my all time favorite flowers!!!

Tulip Overview

Tulips are a bulb planted in the fall that flower the following spring. Luckily they need a period of cold to bloom, so up there in AK they are happy perennials (which means they come back every year).

You’ll want to plant your tulip bulbs before the ground freezes but not so early that they start to sprout.

I get my tulips shipped here from a wholesaler, so I’m sort of at the mercy of their arrival which usually is late September. With our warming climate, we haven’t seen frozen ground in our Anchorage neighborhood until late October or even early November for the last 4+ years. Because of this, planting between mid-September through mid-October will work well!

Tulips prefer a full sun to partial sun environment with well drained soil.

Varieties

When shopping for varieties, the sky is the limit for colors! There are a few general types of tulips I’ll highlight here.

Darwin Tulips: an early variety that performs well as a cut flower on strong stems and comes back as a strong perennial year after year. Gudoshnik is one of my favorite.

Double Tulips: these bloom to a peony-like flower with semi to full double blooms. I love these. They have a great vase life and look extra special and unique in the garden. These will bloom later in the garden so are a good addition to get weeks and weeks of spring blooms.

Parrot Tulips: these are such a different tulip that you will surely get folks wowing over your garden! Scalloped, fringed, and feathery edges in ranges of colors create dramatic arrangements and striking flower gardens. Be on the lookout for ordering these in 2021!

There are lots more! I’ll keep updating varieties as I grow them and experiment with what does best in our Anchorage gardens.

Black hero tulips in the garden in June. This is one of my all time favorite double tulip varieties. I plant each bulb just a few inches apart for a full and dramatic look in the garden.

How to plant

Here’s a quick how-to if you’re new to planting tulips.

1) Prep your garden bed. Dig out a trench about 6-8 inches deep. Pile removed soil in a wheelbarrow or on a tarp to the side. Then sprinkle a thin layer of bone meal on the bottom plus a thin layer of compost. This is optional but I like to give the bulbs a little extra nutrition! If you have done a soil test know that tulips prefer a soil pH of 6.2 to 6.8.

2) Set the bulbs. Plant tulips in a trench as opposed to individually. Then arrange tulip bulbs pointy side up at the bottom of the trench. for the most dramatic color statement, plant bulbs close in clusters of 10-20 (or more!). Each bulb can be placed just a few inches apart. If you plant further you’ll get more of a polka dotted look in the garden. Planting closer however, will give you a nice mass of color!

3) Fill in soil around and over the bulbs. Bulbs should get a good 6 inches of soil on top.

4) Water bulbs well. If it’s a nice rainy fall, you may be able to skip this step.

5) Mulch (optional). I honestly don’t mulch my tulips most years and they do just fine. If you do mulch, be sure to remove it in the spring. Mulch insulates the soil nicely which means it will also keep the soil colder longer! If you don’t remove it promptly, your bulbs will bloom later.

Tulip Maintenance

Now just sit back and wait! When tulips start to emerge in the spring, monitor for soil moisture and water as needed. Just be sure not to over water! They need light moisture: not dry and not too wet.

Blooms last in the garden for a long time. Once blooms are spent, I snip them off so that energy is put into making the bulb bigger and stronger.

Tulips for Cutting

If you’re cutting blooms for the table and still want your bulb to flower next year, leave 2-3 sets of leaves on the plant.

Cut single tulips when color just begins to show on the petals. Doubles, on the other hand, won’t open in the vase unless you cut them after they begin to open in the field.

When arranging with tulips, know that they continue to grow after being cut. So after placing them perfectly in an arrangement, you may have to re-cut a few times to keep them at their proper height.

Copper Image a (double variety) tulip on the left. Brisbane (a double ruffled variety) tulip on the right. This photo was taken right after cutting. Notice when cutting double tulips, the bloom is almost fully open. My double tulips will last in the vase a good 1-2 weeks.